Hostages on the tarmac!

You're ignoring the sequester. The president isn't happy.

April 24, 2013

Jets taxi into takeoff position at Los Angeles International Airport. Flight delays have been reported throughout the nation because of the furloughing of air traffic controllers. (David McNew, Getty Images)

Hours before the federal spending sequester began on March 1, when President Barack Obama predicted that "People are going to be hurt," he did not add, Trust me, I'll make sure of it. But he might as well have, as this week's furloughs of air traffic controllers make obvious.

The furloughs reflect panic: Having exaggerated their early predictions that the sequester's small reduction in spending growth would seriously affect Americans, many Democrats are hell-bent to pre-empt those Americans from drawing two logical conclusions: If one level of cuts is this painless, then maybe we should make ... more cuts to expenditures. And while we're at it, maybe we should ignore the politicians who told us that if Washington lowered the spending growth curve ... the Earth will fly into the sun.

Earlier this month, then, you could anticipate a White House effort to enrage the public when that same public preached blasphemy to McClatchy-Marist pollsters: The percentage of Americans who didn't think the sequester cuts are affecting the economy rose by 13 points over the prior month (from 27 to 40 percent), while the percentage who did think the cuts harm the economy fell by 11 points (from 47 to 36 percent).

The president and his allies in Congress hadn't anticipated that. They've spent March and April listening for fury from citizens who are, um, ignoring the sequester. Some of those citizens instead are marveling that the stock market (as measured by the S&P 500 Index) has shot up 10.7 percent in not-exactly-sequester-ravaged 2013.

So, what could the administration do to make a reduction of barely 1 percent of actual federal outlays — less than $45 billion of this year's roughly $3.8 trillion — turn citizens against Republicans who oppose more tax increases? Easy, or so the president's men and women figured: Cue the air controller furloughs! Let's stall some flights on the tarmac!

Sure enough, travel delays have followed. We're less certain, though, that this hostage-taking will cut the way the White House expects: The scheme relies on citizens being — how to put this delicately? — stupid enough to think that the Federal Aviation Administration can't find a more flier-friendly way to save $600 million.

To believe that, though:

• Americans would have to ignore the plan that U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., delivered in early March to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, detailing how LaHood's FAA could save twice that amount — $1.2 billion.

• Americans would have to ignore House Republicans who note that LaHood's supposedly destitute FAA is spending some $500 million on consultants — and $300 million on travel and supplies.

• And Americans would have to ignore Democrats' refusal to accept congressional Republicans' offer to give the administration more flexibility in sequester cuts — an offer House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., reiterated during a meeting Monday with the Tribune editorial board. No, the White House doesn't want flexibility. The White House wants what the president predicted March 1.

Who knows, maybe congressional Republicans will wind up wearing the jacket for this latest mess; they usually do. Although voters have such a poor opinion of them that it's doubtful their approval rating can fall lower. The notion that, having agreed to tax hikes to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, they'll surrender to the White House — Yes, yes, more tax hikes, and please, let's end the sequester's real-life curbs on spending growth — at the moment looks fanciful.

A different scenario: The longer this intentionally imposed air traffic slowdown drags on, the more incompetent LaHood and other administration officials look. They've had a year and a half to prepare for a sequester that the White House proposed, and that the president signed into law. Yet their idea of good management is to subject thousands of civilian air controllers to rolling furloughs? These officials' plan for winning Americans' hearts and minds is to toy not only with flight schedules, but also with a moribund economy that relies on the efficiency of U.S. air travel?

We note that, except for some party leaders who have no choice but to back their president, not many Democrats are, pardon the phrase, flying to his side.

Some of them may think this game of chicken is politically dangerous.

Or they may be thinking about another kind of danger: the first air scare that occurs because an understaffed, overworked control tower makes a mistake.